Bonding and building trust

Time flies by so fast that things that seem so far away at one point are now past event.

My girls school from year three have one residential trip per year. We have all being looking forward to these. Many things that we have to do are as new to me as they are for the girls. School trips are something that always excite me, more so for overnight school trips. Kids will have loads of fun bonding with mates, learn and build trust with other people different from their parents.

When Yeye first went to an overnight school trip, 2 days and a night. The school was awesome in providing detailed information on activities. She and her friends had fun.

Year after, it was 2 nights – the build up over the last three years has been fantastic, each time they were away was a great opportunity to bond with year group, adults around and learn new things.

I did not have this kind of experience growing up, not even in secondary school let alone primary school so it is such a big deal. There are so many reasons why this was not something that is on offer for students in my primary school. Funding is an obvious one but beyond that, is lack of trust.

I had one school trip in my secondary school. It was a trip to Alawode Factory on Famia Road, maybe there was a proper name for this factory but the owner’s name was Alawode. We went there to see people making furniture. What I remember from that trip was walking up the road and vague memory of heavy machines. Nonetheless, it was my very own excursion experience. That said factory now is no more.

My dear Nigeria, upholding positive reputation can only be good for us all.

This year my girls for the first time went on an oversea ski trip with the school mates. We have signed up since last year, we were all excited. All our concerns were addressed by the school.

The school was brilliant, got kids to call every evening (well almost), but we do get pictures of the day’s activities on the school hub so even the day that they didn’t call, one could tell that they were definitely up on the mountain earlier in the day having fun.

I knew I wasn’t going to get all the information about the whole trip in one day so I didn’t even try so was just happy to see them back home.

Valuable lesson of parenting that I have learnt over the past years, If I wanted to learn more about a sleepover or overnight school trip especially the ones that was fun-packed, patient is the key otherwise all I would get is be ‘great’ or ‘fun’.

Takes time but now I know that they both enjoyed every moment of this trip. This is the longest overnight school trip for both. Five nights were just about right for their age. They both said this is the best trip ever because they feel like they bonded well with mates who are in different classes and age group – they were paired together with girls who are in different classes from theirs for sleeping arrangement which I think was fantastic as they learn more about one another and likely to play more together now. They even learned the act of persuasion – getting the only German-speaking girl in the group to translate a TV show – how cool is that?

What a wonderful experience for your children, Fola. I can remember some of the trips our children went on while at school. It is only natural to be apprehensive. By and large, they do seem to have been a positive influence.
Leslie

What great experiences these are not just for the kids but apparently for the parents as you get remembrances of things past – even though yours, like most of us oldies, were way different – and even get to learn of the way things are now!

Thanks for sharing this particular rite of passage of growing kids of modern era although I know you’d agree that you and even earlier generations had things and experiences the kids would love to,hear about when they are much older. I was in awe when my oldest brother used to regale us with stories of how they used to walk most of the way to Oyo – St. Andrew’s College – from Ado-Ekiti; they would walk in a group from Iju to Ado (17 miles) before traveling in public transport! My own kids had the same awed-look when I would tell them there were days back in the 50s when I would walk from Sabo Bus Stop, Yaba, Lagos to,Okesuna whenever I missed the school bus that charged a penny once you were in your school uniform! That should be up to 8 miles rather than wLk from Tinubu Square on the island to Okesuna – about 2 mls.

The daily walk to and from Tinubu was – sort of – fun as far as we were concerned because we just chatted all the way and in a way, I never really find the occasional long walk bad because the bus ride meant two of us had to LAP: the smaller girl sat on the lap of the bigger girl and both split the 5 kobo bus fare to Tinubu!

So much for dinosaur-era FUN compared to girls SLEEPING OVER or going on excursion to coreign countries.